Excerpt From the Diary of Rev. Francis Asbury

The Reverend Francis Asbury was Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church from August 7, 1771, to December 7, 1815, and recorded his diary in three volumes. Volume II contains this account for Thursday, June 10, 1788, on page 35.

“We had to cross the Allegheny Mountains again at a bad passage. Our course lay over mountains and through valleys and the mud and mire was such as might scarcely be expected in December. We came to an old forsaken habitation in Tygers-Valley; here our horses grazed about, while we boiled our meat; midnight brought us up on Jones’s, after riding forty, or perhaps fifty miles. The old man, our host, was kind enough to wake us up at four o’clock in the morning. We journeyed on through devious lonely wilds, where no food might be found, except what grew in the woods, or was carried with us. We met with two women who were going to see their friends, and to attend the quarterly meeting in Clarksburg. Near midnight we stopped at ------’s who hissed his dogs at us; but the women were determined to get to quarterly meeting, so we went in. Our supper was tea. Brothers Phoebus and Cook took to the woods; old ----gave up his bed to the women. I lay along the floor on a few deer skins with the fleas. That night our poor horses got no corn; and next morning they had to swim across the Monongahela; after a twenty miles’ ride we came to Clarksburg, and man and beast were so outdone that it took us ten hours to accomplish it. I lodged with Col. Jackson. Our meeting was held in a long close room belonging to the Baptists; our use of the house it seems gave offense. There attended about seven hundred people, to whom I preached with freedom; and I believe the Lord’s power reached the hearts of some. After administering the sacrament, I was well satisfied to take my leave.”

An entry from a later date, September 4, 1781, contains this statement:

“At Cheat River we had a mixed congregation of sinners, Presbyterians, Baptists, and, it may be, of saints. I had liberty, and gave it too them as the Lord gave it to me, plain enough.”